[plt-dev] Re: [plt-bug] all/10133: set! sometimes doesn't work in interactions window

On Mar 16, John Clements wrote:
> 
> On Mar 16, 2009, at 2:14 PM, Eli Barzilay wrote:
> 
> > On Mar 16, Matthew Flatt wrote:
> >> See also
> >>
> >> http://docs.plt-scheme.org/guide/module-set.html
> >>
> >> We should work on getting documentation links into error messages.
> >
> > +1
> 
> What I'd really like to see is some kind of leverage using Google &
> web-fu.

-2 (One for the google part, and another for my original contribution
to it...)  I think that relying on google for anything concrete is
dangerous.  It usually ends up with explaining why stuff doesn't work
using some excuse of "it wasn't indexed yet", it is easy to get lost
in a maze of redesigning links so that the "proper" links get more
weight, etc.  The danger in the first part is that by the time the
content should have been indexed, enough time has passed for you to be
far from the piece of documentation, which means a higher overhead to
start editing it again -- and even if you do, there's a delay in
getting to see the results.  (IOW, the "debug-rerun" cycle has about
two weeks between each step.)


> In particular, I'd like it to be possible for people to google for
> error messages and wind up at a page where they can contribute and
> read other peoples' suggested links and/or fixes. I know for a fact
> that my students google for error messages,

[People will do it, and they usually know the kind of salt that needs
to be applied.  But to include it in DrScheme error message, for
example, means that it's becoming an "official" way to know what
errors mean.]


> and it seems like it would be possible for plt-scheme to host a web
> page where people could contribute helpful suggestions.

This is (unrelated to the above) a good idea though.  One of my
original ideas for the documentation was to have wiki-style "edit"
links which will go to a page that allows you to edit the source for
that bit of documentation.  Such edits can be send as patches to some
place where someone can review and apply it.  IIRC, there are some
Gnome projects that do just this.

-- 
          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
                  http://www.barzilay.org/                 Maze is Life!